Tuesday, 22 April 2008

It was a busy Saturday. I had fennel and beetroot in the cupboard. Two separate things, one might think, but according to the world that exists within my head, these two facts were very linked and could only be solved together.

In between normal Saturday food shopping and cleaning, we spent the day gardening, trying to bring some order to the overgrown former building site that our back yard had become. I garden more for edibility than for beauty so my main concern was to get the herbs potted and tended to, and to clear and prep the vegetable patch for all the goodness that awaited it. Though the rest of the garden is still not fit to have children running around in it, we have planted our 2 varieties of peas, our two types of lettuce, rhubarb (which takes 54 weeks to come a-cropping; no need to rush things), aubergines and cantaloupes, and purple sprouting broccoli has its patch laid out and is waiting to go in the ground.

And in the back of my mind were the fennel and beetroot. I felt they could come together in a salad, and a quick google search pointed me in the direction of combining them with lentils to make the salad complete. The fennel was from our organic vegetable delivery box, and the anisette smell from it was unlike any I've smelled from fennel before - it was fresh and strong and a fabulous perfume that tempted you to stand about and sniff the bulb until your nose lost sense of any smell that came before or after it.

I had to leave the salad to be finished by Mr A&N as I needed to soak my tired gardening body in the bath tub. Before coming back down the stairs, I noticed that the smell had changed from one of fennel to one of a very strong garlic - Mr A&N is never shy with the garlic, but this smell was quite something else. The salad was simple and refreshing (albeit garlicky), with the beetroot coloring everything its distinctive purple color - including my top, when I dropped some lentils down the front of it.

I had to laugh when I saw this recipe. I love fennel and loathe beetroot and Stuart loves beetroot and (after a youthful overindulgence in Pernod!) cannot stomach fennel. So sadly I think we may have to pass on this one ...though it really does look very good. Perhaps I could try very hard to give the red root another go.

I love beets and fennel together! I have a recipe for a beet and fennel salad on my site too and I add kohlrabi to mine which is nice as well. I'm loving the addition of addition of cheese and lentils in your version, I'm going to try this next time. It's a great idea to bulk out the salad with lentils and eat it as a more substantial meal.